COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 15 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 12), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,738.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 40 percent or 6 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 961 deaths per one million population and is the fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

Pahang recorded the highest number of new deaths at 4, making up 26.7 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Johor (2), Kelantan (2), Perak (2), Negeri Sembilan (1), Sabah (1), Selangor (1), Terengganu (1) and Kuala Lumpur (1).

No new deaths were reported in Kedah, Malacca, Perlis, Penang, Sarawak, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 14 out of the 15 reported deaths or 93.3 percent occurred in the last seven days.

The remaining deaths occurred more than a week ago but were only recorded yesterday due to delays in data reporting.

An average of 28 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 18, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 540 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

As of yesterday, there were 39,896 active Covid-19 cases. This is an increase of 0.4 percent from the 39,739 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 31.1 percent from 57,928.

Cluster-linked infections

The Health Ministry's post-midnight update also provided further insights into the new Covid-19 infections yesterday.

From the 3,198 new cases yesterday, a total of 164 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 55 (33.5 percent) were from workplaces while 49 (29.9 percent) were from education institutions.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to religious events (40 - 24.4 percent), imported (7 - 4.3 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (7 - 4.3 percent) and community transmissions (6 - 3.7 percent).

The Health Ministry uploads the latest details of the Covid-19 pandemic after midnight on Github as part of its open data initiative.